


if you should try to kiss her

by disgruntledkittenface



Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: American AU, Banter, Christmas Party, F/F, Flirting, Fluff, Kissing, No Smut, Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:09:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27715243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disgruntledkittenface/pseuds/disgruntledkittenface
Summary: It’s kind of their thing now. They make relentless snarky comments to and about each other and exchange meaningful eye contact every time they think no one is looking. At least, that’s what Louis thinks they’re doing, like their own extended lesbian mating ritual. It seems obvious to her that they’re inevitable in some kind of cosmic, grand design type of way; they’re eventually going to end up together and fix up an old house and Nick will build a chicken coop for the backyard (or hire someone to build it, probably) and then they’ll live happily ever after, bickering the whole time.If only she could be sure that’s what Nick thinks they’re doing.Harry's annual Christmas party gives Louis her chance to be brave and tell Nick how she feels.
Relationships: Nick Grimshaw/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 22
Kudos: 37
Collections: Girl Direction Winter Fic Fest





	if you should try to kiss her

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Lauren and Megan for reopening signups the last week before fics were due and also for generally just being lovely humans! And thank you to my beta for a speedy read and kind words, ily. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed writing it!

“Wow, your gingerbread house looks like shit, Lou.”

Louis blows out a breath, trying in equal parts to get a lock of hair out of her eye without using her frosting-covered hands and to calm down enough to not throttle Nick, whose own gingerbread house looks just as much like shit as Louis’ does, if you ask her anyway. She takes a moment from the candy-coated disaster in front of her to glare sideways at her competition, but she has to fix a load-bearing gingerbread wall with the limited amount of supplies she has before Harry calls time, so she can’t stop and think of a retort as much as she’d like to. 

And she would like to. Everyone thought she would be jealous when her old best friend Harry found a new best friend at work, and they were right; she was a seething mass of insecurity for at least a month, gritting her teeth every time Harry started a sentence with “Nick says” or got distracted texting Nick when she was supposed to be hanging out with Louis. But then they’d finally met at a happy hour, circling each other warily for half the night before Louis cracked and mocked Nick’s drink choice (who under the age 70 and outside of the state of Florida orders a seabreeze, honestly) and the ice had been officially broken. Nick mocked her taste in cheap beer right back, and the spark that to everyone else looked like animosity felt a lot more like attraction to Louis.

It’s kind of their thing now. They make relentless snarky comments to and about each other and exchange meaningful eye contact every time they think no one is looking. At least, that’s what Louis thinks they’re doing, like their own extended lesbian mating ritual. It seems obvious to her that they’re inevitable in some kind of cosmic, grand design type of way; they’re eventually going to end up together and fix up an old house and Nick will build a chicken coop for the backyard (or hire someone to build it, probably) and then they’ll live happily ever after, bickering the whole time.

If only she could be sure that’s what Nick thinks they’re doing. 

Well, tonight’s the night she’s going to find out once and for all. Harry’s annual Christmas party had given her the perfect excuse to go all out; she’s wearing a white short-sleeve turtleneck paired with a short pleated Burberry plaid skirt and Zayn had come over early to help her with her winged eyeliner. Louis looks hot, if she says so herself, and she thinks she’s right going by the amount of times she’s caught Nick staring at her legs. She just has to win this gingerbread house building competition, and then they can move onto the secret Santa gift exchange, where she’s finally going to make her big move. 

“Time!” Harry calls out, eliciting groans from around the table. Louis subtly tries to shore up one of her walls with a stack of Life Savers, but Harry spots her. “Lou! I said _time!”_

“Disqualified,” Nick announces, dodging Louis’ attempt to elbow her in the ribs. “Right, Harry?”

“Shut up,” Louis hisses as Harry ignores them, starting to circle the table with an actual clipboard to start her judging. “I totally would have had this if you hadn’t swiped that spoonful of my frosting.”

“It’s not like it matters,” Nick replies, gesturing across the table. “Zayn’s clearly going to win, I think she’s been practicing since last year.” 

Louis narrows her eyes at Zayn, her second oldest friend, who’s batting her eyelashes innocently as Harry oohs and aahs over her gingerbread house. It does look suspiciously well constructed, allowing her artistic talent to shine in the decoration. She even managed to make the windows look like stained glass somehow. Her girlfriend Liam is beaming with pride next to her, and Louis definitely smells a setup. 

“Those two are definitely in cahoots,” she remarks under her breath to Nick. “They’ll pay for this.”

“They’ve brought dishonor upon both of our houses,” Nick agrees, frowning as the ceiling on her gingerbread house starts to collapse. She holds out her hand for Louis to shake. “We’ll avenge this. Together.”

Louis prays she isn’t blushing as she takes Nick's hand in hers to shake, admiring her long fingers and neatly trimmed nails. A sworn oath for revenge upon a common enemy is definitely the way to her heart. And into her mini skirt, if she’s honest. 

After Harry makes a pretense of examining the rest of the gingerbread houses, she crowns Zayn the winner with a handmade flower wreath complete with a sprig of mistletoe. Nick and Louis mime gagging as Liam gives Zayn a congratulatory kiss and Zayn silently flicks them off. Then the by now raucous group makes its way into the living room and gathers around the tree. Another one of Harry’s work friends, Mitch, silently hands out the secret Santa gifts, only cracking a smile when Harry presses a sloppy kiss to her cheek in thanks. Mitch’s wife Sarah, used to their friend group by now, doesn’t even protest; she just turns off Harry’s Christmas playlist when a song from _Glee_ comes on and everyone boos, syncing up her phone to the Bluetooth speaker so she can DJ.

“All right.” Niall, one of their college friends, rubs her hands together in excitement. “Who’s up first?”

There’s some squabbling over the order they’ll go in, but Harry declares they’ll just move around the circle after starting with the youngest, Niall’s friend slash crush Shawn, and everyone quiets down as she refills their glasses. Louis notices that Nick switched to water at some point, and wonders if it’s for the same reason that she did before that rigged gingerbread house competition: because she plans on kissing Nick tonight, and she plans on remembering it.

There’s not much time to dwell on the possibility; she has to at least pretend to pay attention as the others open their gifts. Shawn blushes furiously, her cheeks a deep red, as she holds up her gift, a pencil case shaped like a banana. Everyone howls with laughter, remembering how Shawn had admired her ex-girlfriend’s fearlessness in asking their waiter at a sushi restaurant if they served bananas. She smiles graciously, though, and Louis is glad the joke was taken as friendly rather than mean, the way she knows that Liam intended it. After Louis had planted the idea in her mind, of course. 

They go around the circle after that, everyone cheering when Harry opens a sparkly pink dildo – well, almost everyone, her sister Gemma squawks indignantly in the corner, insisting there are some things she doesn’t need to know. Louis can tell from the gleam in Niall’s eye that it was from her, and she lifts a glass to her. Harry’s been in a dry spell for far too long, she deserves to have some sparkly pink fun. The gifts continue in the same vein from there, some outright jokes and others just cheeky, and they have a great time exclaiming and clapping at each one.

Then it’s Nick’s turn.

Louis’ mouth goes a bit dry and there’s a pit forming in her stomach as Nick starts to unwrap her gift. She’d gotten her a copy of _But I’m a Cheerleader_ on DVD, a movie Nick always complains isn’t streaming. It might not seem like much, it was well under the spending limit that Harry had set, but Louis has heard Nick rhapsodize about the movie and her first time watching it enough times to know it will mean something to her. As much as it would mean to Louis, actually; she’d had the same gay awakening the first time she’d watched it, feeling hideously exposed sitting in the dark theater connecting dots she’d been too stubborn to before. She holds her breath as Nick tears away the wrapping, revealing the cover.

“Oh, wow,” Nick murmurs more to herself than the group. After a long moment, she clears her throat and holds the DVD up for everyone to see. “Wow, um… thank you, Santa. Whoever you are.”

The clapping for Nick’s gift is a bit more subdued, and Louis can’t tell if she got it right or very wrong. Maybe she should have gone the joke gift route like everyone else seemed to. Maybe it was too personal a gift for this kind of party? Maybe she just blew her chance with The One. Tears spring to her eyes and she tries to blink them away. Fuck, she’d been so sure this was going to be it.

“Louis!” Harry calls out from across the circle, poking Louis’ leg with her toe to get her attention. “It’s your turn!”

She manages a smile, holding up her wrapped gift and tugging at the clumsy ribbon. It’s poorly wrapped too, whoever her secret Santa is had relied on about a hundred pieces of tape instead of the three that Louis’ mom taught her how to do in Girl Scouts. It’s weirdly charming, and Louis finds her smile turning genuine as she finally rips the paper enough to reveal that she got a DVD too. She turns it over to see the front and gasps.

_But I’m a Cheerleader._

There’s only one person at this party who could have gotten this for her. She’s sure of it. And that person is trembling next to her, biting her lip and ruining her bright red lipstick. 

Louis holds up the DVD for everyone to see, turning to Nick and saying, “Thank you,” low enough so only she can hear. Before she can say anything else, Nick jumps out of her chair.

“Be right back! Just gonna fix my face before Harold here makes us do pictures.”

Harry nods approvingly, but Louis knows that Nick didn’t just fly out of the room to prepare for whatever family portrait poses that Harry has planned for their next group activity. She glances around the room, but no one is paying attention to her, too busy showing each other their gifts, so she gets up and quietly slips out of the room, clutching her DVD. 

The door to the bathroom in the hallway is ajar and Louis gently pushes it open to see Nick actually reapplying her lipstick. She has great lips, Louis loves to admire them stretched in a wide smile as they so often are. The bright red only emphasizes the dip in the middle of her upper lip, making Louis’ mouth water slightly. Nick is just so hot is the thing, and she doesn’t even realize it because kids were mean to her during her awkward phase. Louis wishes they could all see her now, tall and lithe with legs for days. She has the thickest eyelashes Louis’ ever seen without mascara, framing her gorgeous hazel eyes. And the thing that probably tormented her in middle school is the thing Louis likes best about her now; she’s not generically beautiful, she’s unique. The longer you look at her, the more you see her for how beautiful she really is. Inside and out, really. Nick is so smart and witty, always quick with a joke at her friends’ expense but also one of the most loyal people that Louis has ever met. She’s ambitious and doesn’t mind hard work, and she likes to take care of people and feel needed. Honestly, it’s a wonder Louis didn’t reserve a U-Haul the first night they met. 

If only she could actually tell her all that.

She’d been hoping that the secret Santa gift would say it for her, but now she’s realizing what a cop out that was. Except… Nick gave her the same gift. As she watches Nick blot her lipstick with a tissue, she chuckles to herself. What a perfect match they are. 

“I just wanted to thank you,” Louis says softly as they make eye contact in the mirror. She holds up her DVD. “For this. Thank you.”

Nick smiles, a small private one just for Louis, and turns around, picking her DVD up from the sink counter. 

“I should be thanking you,” she says, waving the DVD. “I love this movie.”

“I know,” Louis laughs, stepping inside the bathroom and leaning against the door jamb. “I, um…” She stalls for time by pushing her hair off her forehead, but eventually she has to bite the bullet. Be brave. “I love the way you talk about it.”

Louis’ heart is racing. It was a simple admission, but one that felt like leaping off of a cliff.

“Yeah, I noticed you, um…” Nick waves her hand toward Louis. “You do that thing whenever it comes up, you kind of bite your lip and look at the ceiling, like that’s going to hide how you feel or something.”

“I don’t do that,” Louis protests, biting her lip and glancing up. “Oh.”

“‘Oh’ is right,” Nick says, her smile wide as she takes a step toward her. “You totally do that.”

“Only around you,” Louis confesses, looking up through her lashes. “You make me all… fluttery.”

“Thank fuck,” Nick laughs, closing the distance between them. “I thought you felt the same way, Harry kept telling me how obvious we both were, but–”

“Harry knows? Why didn’t she say anything to me?” This is outrageous. Louis is outraged. “She’s my best friend.”

“Well, she’s my best friend too,” Nick reminds her, “and I swore her to secrecy.”

That’s so unfair. Louis is about to give Nick a piece of her mind about how unfair that is, but then Nick gently takes the DVD from her and sets it on the counter along with hers and everything Louis was about to say flies out of her head. Her breath catches as Nick steps into her space, and suddenly Nick’s red painted lips are all she can see. Okay, this is it. This is the moment to be brave. That moment before? That was nothing compared to now. She’s not going to let Nick be the braver one, that’s a terrible precedent and no way for their relationship to start.

So she summons every last ounce of courage in her body and sways forward, capturing Nick’s lips in a kiss. It’s sweet between them until it’s suddenly not, the spark that Louis has felt for months turns to fire, burning through her body as Nick’s large hands grip her waist and draw her closer, their lips parting as their tongues meet to dance together. Her hands are trapped between them, all she can do is grasp the lapels of Nick’s fitted gold blazer, holding on as tightly as she can.

Nick draws back just far enough to mutter against her lips, “You little minx, wearing this skirt.” She moves a hand down to stroke the back of Louis’ thigh, causing her to shiver. “You don’t know what your legs are doing to me.”

“You’re one to talk,” Louis retorts breathlessly. “You’re all leg, you drive me crazy.” 

Nick connects their lips again, running her hands all over Louis’ body, driving her wild. But as much as she’d like to fuck in Harry’s guest bathroom, she doesn’t actually want to fuck in Harry’s guest bathroom, so she pulls back and rests her forehead against Nick’s, trying to catch her breath.

“Do you maybe wanna come over?” Nick asks, toying with the hem of Louis’ skirt. “We could watch the movie, and I could give you your birthday present.”

“My birthday present?” Louis draws back, raising her eyebrows. “What is it? Where is it? Gimme it.”

“And ruin the surprise?” Nick raises her eyebrows back at Louis.

“I’m a Christmas Eve baby, the surprise has been ruined my whole life,” Louis says, giving Nick her best pout. “Please give me my present? Please, Nick?”

“That’s kind of what I figured, you know,” Nick says, toying with her hem again. “Your birthday probably gets overlooked.” She looks up and meets Louis’ gaze. “And you should never feel overlooked, Louis. Ever.”

“Give me my present,” Louis whispers, trying not to cry.

“Alright, okay,” Nick says, reaching into her pocket. “I didn’t know how to wrap it. But, um, yeah. Saw it and it made me think of you, so.”

She holds out her hand and there’s a keychain resting on her palm. It’s simple, the kind of thing you might find in a drug store or tourist shop. Louis can’t help but smile at the charm, though, a bright yellow sun. She looks up at Nick.

“It made you think of me?” 

“Yeah,” Nick says, like it should be obvious. “You’re like the sun, you’re so warm and everyone is drawn to you, and sometimes when you grin, it’s really like you’re beaming. It’s kind of awesome.”

“You’re kind of awesome,” Louis mutters, picking the keychain up. “Thank you.”

“I’m sorry, I know it’s not much of a gift,” Nick says, shrugging. “I had a key to my place on it originally, but Harry told me maybe I should wait until after our first date.”

Louis grins, taking in Nick’s beautiful face, red lipstick smudged all over her mouth.

“There it is,” Nick murmurs, lifting a hand to caress Louis’ jaw. “Just like the sun.”

“For the record,” Louis says, not bothering to try to hide how she feels. Not anymore. “Harry’s an idiot. But I kind of am too, I should have just rented that U-Haul the first night we met and saved us all some time.”

“Come over,” Nick says lowly, pulling Louis closer and kissing her again. “Please.”

“As long as we don’t have to say goodbye to everyone,” Louis says, reaching up and thumbing at the smudges around Nick’s mouth. “Let’s just sneak out and deal with them later.”

“Oh, I thought that went without saying,” Nick says, laughing and twisting to look at her reflection in the mirror. “Oh, god, look what you’ve done to me. I look like the Joker.”

“First we fix our faces,” Louis says, “and then we sneak out.”

They shake on it and grab tissues, cleaning up as they grin goofily at each other in the mirror. Louis teases Nick for her vanity as she reapplies her lipstick again and then gasps when Nick lifts the tube and scrawls BYE XX on the mirror in bright red letters.

“In case they come looking for us,” she says, shrugging and grabbing Louis’ hand. “Come on, let’s go.”

Louis lets Nick gently pull her down the hallway, clutching her gifts in her hand, unsure how she ever doubted this tall, beautiful woman knew what Louis has always known. 

They were inevitable. 

And all Louis had to do was kiss her to prove it. 

**Author's Note:**

> [fic post!](https://disgruntledkittenface.tumblr.com/post/639310361243336705/if-you-should-try-to-kiss-her-by/)


End file.
